The click of the first cuff releasing might as well have been angels singing. She quickly freed her other wrist and alternated rubbing both. They throbbed, along with her entire body, but no wonder.
Amanda pulled out her phone. She unlocked it and confirmed the day was still the twelfth. It also showed six missed calls—two from blocked numbers, one from Malone, a couple from Trent, one from Becky—and a text message from Jacob.
Jacob’s text was straightforward and concise. Just that the files from the data chip were on the mainframe server of PWCPD and he’d left a message for Patricia Glover in Sex Crimes.
She keyed back a quick Thanks then turned her attention to the voicemail icon in the top-left-hand corner. She knew at least one message was from her father.
She looked at the photo that Rick had left of her father, picked it up, and ran her fingertip over her father’s face. She’d have to warn him about Rick. Might as well listen to his message. She dialed into her voicemail and played her messages.
“Sweetie, it’s Dad.”
He sounded so tired and sad.
“It’s all over now. You can come home if you want to. You know we’re here for you. We’d love to see you.”
A pocket of silence, followed by, “End of message. To—”
She hit the button to save the message and hung up without listening to the others. She didn’t know what she had expected at hearing her dad’s voice. Overwhelming emotions, sure, but not in this magnitude. For the last five years she’d lived numb, hardly feeling or feeling too much but doing her best to drown her emotions out whatever way she could. But upon hearing him, his loving plea… She heaved with deep sobs and the tears fell in a rapid torrent.
He’d sounded so broken, so destroyed, so destitute. And the guilt rolled over her, threatening to bury her alive. The accident wasn’t his fault, or her mother’s, or her family’s, but she’d cut them off. Again, not for anything they had done but because she was protecting herself. It hurt so much to see them, but there was more to it. She’d lost the love of her life and her sweet little girl, and the baby she’d never know. If she could distance herself from other people, barricade herself behind iron, cloak herself in chain mail, she’d never be able to be dealt such a lethal blow again. She’d acted preemptively and cut the emotional connection because as long as humans were mortal, death was inevitable.
But she had an obligation and her word to keep—to her daughter, to Rick Jensen, and to the oath she’d taken. She willed herself off the floor. As much as the thought of coming face to face with her parents hurt, she had to warn her father about Rick Jensen, and she had to get back to the Palmer investigation—even if it was off the books.
First, she’d need to get herself cleaned up.
She staggered to the bathroom and turned on the light. She cried out at the brightness and flipped the switch again, taking a few moments to prepare herself for the onslaught of two one-hundred-watt-equivalency LEDs.
She opened her eyes in increments, letting her vision adjust in stages. When she saw the reflection of herself in the mirror she gasped. Her eyes were puffy, and her lip and cheek were cut and marked by dried blood. The latter was also encrusted around her mouth. But the blood could be washed down the drain; it was the bruising that gave her a ghoulish appearance.
She wet a cloth with warm water and dabbed it to her face, slowly and gingerly, wincing with each contact and being reminded that she could have died today. That before today she thought she’d welcome the chance, but now there was something in her that had changed, if only a fraction.
She took her time cleaning her wounds and opened her cosmetic tray. She had a foundation brush in hand when she heard a noise.
She stalled all movement.
The front door. It had moaned when it reached about two-thirds open.
Footsteps.
He was back!
She quietly tiptoed to her room and grabbed her Beretta. She held it at the ready and crept to the side of her door and tucked against the wall. From this vantage point, she could see down the hall and get the upper hand on her intruder.
A glimpse of a shadow and her body tensed. She slinked back and shouted, “Stop right there!”
Arms shot up in the air in surrender. “Whoa! It’s Trent.”
She lowered her gun. “What the hell, rookie? Announce yourself.”
“Sorry, sorry, sorry. Yeah, I should have.” He wiped his forehead.
“I could have shot you!” She brushed past him toward the bathroom.
“I was worried about you. I haven’t heard anything from you and then I get here, and your front door was ajar. Are you—”
“I’m fine.” She stood in the bathroom doorway, but enough light must have spilled into the hallway to show the bruising and cuts on her face. Trent’s mouth gaped open.
“What happened to you? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” She went into the bathroom and closed the door. “I’ll be out in a minute,” she added, feeling a little bad for shutting him out when he’d just been worried about her.
“Ah, sure. I’ll just be… ah, in your living room.”
“That’s fine.” She finished caking on foundation, then added some more, followed by powder, and winced with every stroke of the brush. It was a relief when she’d finished.
She found Trent sitting on her couch. He jumped to his feet when she entered the room as if a pin had been pulled on a grenade and he needed to move.
She started to smile but the expression hurt. “One second.” She held up a finger to Trent and returned to the bathroom, grabbed a couple of ibuprofens, and downed them with a glass of water in the kitchen. She slowly lowered herself onto a chair that faced the couch and gestured for him to return to his seat. “What are you doing here?”
“I told you. I was worried about you.”
She studied him, looking for any sign that he was pissed she’d just left him without a word, but she didn’t see any anger. He was either one of the most forgiving people she’d ever encountered, or he was a good actor. “How did you know you’d find me at my house?”
“I thought there was a good chance.”
“Huh. So none of my neighbors called anything in? No complaints of yelling or shouting?”
He glanced over at her. “Not that I’m aware of.”
“That’s reassuring.” So much for small-town living being advantageous in the community coming together to prevent crime. “Guessing you heard what happened at work?”
Trent gripped his hands together and rubbed his palms. “Yeah.”
“Then you know I’m off the Palmer case.”
“And that you may be leaving PWCPD if what Malone told me is true.”
Her head hurt too much to get into what the man thought, and sure, in his place she’d think her actions constituted quitting, but she hadn’t come out and said as much in words. “I’m not leaving. In fact, I’ve got to get back to work.”
She jumped up and rushed to the door—and staggered. Her head was spinning.
“Careful there.” Trent was quickly at her side, and she brushed him away, but a wave of nausea threatened to topple her and had her returning to the chair she’d been sitting in.
Trent dropped back onto the couch. “Are you going to tell me”—his gaze dipped over every tender spot on her face—“what happened? We’re partners.”
“Were.”
“Don’t think you’ll get rid of me that easy, and you can also save any speech you might be thinking of about how you’re fine and whatever went down here is all fine. Fine is a trigger word for shrinks.”
She quirked an eyebrow and that simple action hurt, but she respected this new sassy side to the rookie detective. “And you’re a shrink now?” One of the ugly traits that she tended to bring out in her partners.
He stayed silent long enough to draw her out; like a good fisherman who knew how to reel in the line precisely so as not to have his catch break free.
“All rig
ht, there was an incident,” she admitted, “but I’ll be fine.”
His jaw tightened, and he rubbed his hands together again, the brushing motion sounding a lot like sandpaper scraping on wood. “I was just an officer with the Dumfries PD,” he began.
“Which wasn’t long ago,” she intercepted.
“Sure, but I was working a case with the FBI.”
She was tempted to cut in again, this time with something smart about it being his fifteen minutes of fame that he clung to.
Trent went on. “I might have overstepped and put myself into a situation…”
She found herself leaning forward. There may be more to Trent than met the eye, after all. “Might have?”
“Okay, I did.” He tossed out a small smile with the confession. “Anyway, because of that I got shot.”
“Come on.” There was no way this rookie detective had been hit in the line of duty.
“I’m being serious.”
“Huh. I had no idea.”
“You’d have no reason to know. I lived, but I take that day with me all the time. Carry it around, but not like a burden or a weight; more as a reminder. I know how embarrassing it can be when someone gets the upper hand, but we’re human, Amanda. It happens. Sometimes we’re on top. Other times, well, not so much.”
She sank back in her chair and studied him, deciding whether she wanted to confess all that had transpired. So much of it was incredibly personal and the fact Trent had shared his story didn’t make it mandatory that she share hers.
“You can talk to me. I’m a steel trap,” he tagged on and smiled.
“I came home. Figured I’d grab a couple of things and take off… for a bit of a break. My front door was unlocked.”
Trent perched forward like he was about to spring into action, but he remained seated. “You should have called it in.”
“After I just left my badge and gun behind? No thanks. Anyway, I quickly found out that Palmer’s cousin had broken in.”
“He hurt you.”
“Yeah, he—”
He shook his head. “That wasn’t a question. I saw your face before the makeup, and I can still see the bruising and cuts to your lip and cheek through it.”
“Wonderful.”
“It’s barely noticeable.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Okay, now you’re lying.”
He pinched his fingers to almost touching.
“Like I told you though, I’m fine. Like you, I survived. I’m alive.”
“He threatened your life, didn’t he?” Trent’s face took on sharp angles.
He was a far better detective than she had ever wanted to give him credit for. “He did.” And her father’s, but she couldn’t bring herself to say that right now.
“We should go pick him up.” He sprang off the couch.
She stood and grabbed his arm on a back swing and let go just as quickly. Her head was spinning. “No.”
“Why? Why wouldn’t we?” He scanned her eyes.
He might as well have said give me one good reason. She was catapulted right back to Rick Jensen saying the same.
She blinked slowly. “I first need to know you’re on my side.”
“Stupid question. You’re the first partner I’ve ever had. Loyalty means something to me.”
It was as if seconds ticked off with clunks as she held eye contact with him.
Trent stepped back, let out a deep breath. “Talk to me.”
“All Rick wants is justice for his cousin.”
“He doesn’t get that by threatening your life.”
“No, you’re right, he doesn’t,” she said to cool him down. “What I tell you next stays between us—remember what you just said? ‘Steel trap’ and all that?”
“Uh-huh.”
“He’s holding me accountable for the outcome of the Palmer investigation.”
“You told him you’re not working it anymore?”
“I did, but he didn’t want to hear it.”
“So what do you do now?”
She peered into his eyes. How far did his claimed loyalty go? “I plan to keep working the case.”
“Oh.” Trent raked a hand through his hair. “Just to hear you say it…”
“You’re loyal, remember?”
His gaze snapped to hers again.
“There’s something I need to tell you. Remember the bracelet I got off Freddy?”
“Yeah?”
“I took it to Digital Forensics last night and it turns out there’s evidence on there of a sex-trafficking ring.” She probably should have filled him in last night, but she was going to tell him once the files were confirmed on the mainframe server. But Lieutenant Hill happened, then Rick Jensen.
“A— What?” Trent dropped back onto the couch. “Right here in Dumfries or…?”
She realized that Jacob hadn’t specified geography. “Probably and Woodbridge, maybe all of Prince William County. Washington, DC, too? I don’t know the reach yet.”
“Wow. I never would have—”
“I wouldn’t have seen this coming either. I mean Palmer was involved with fencing stolen goods. That’s a far cry from facilitating the sale of little girls.”
“Girls?” Trent blanched.
“Some as young as six.” God help any man who might have tried this with Lindsey. Amanda would have disemboweled him and tied his entrails around a tree, letting him bleed out or be eaten by wild animals.
Trent wiped a hand over his mouth. “Wow. So what do we do?”
“We bring them all down. The information from the data chip is already on the server and someone from Sex Crimes has been assigned the case. Detective Patricia Glover. Quite sure that she left me a voicemail, but I haven’t listened to it yet.”
“Wow.”
“Would you please stop saying that?” She realized it was usually her throwing that word around. It was official: she was rubbing off on him.
“It’s just I came here thinking I had a good lead to share, but this—what you have—overshadows whatever I could say.”
“What is it, Trent?”
“The Caprice was found,” he said.
“No, that’s good; we might find more pieces of the puzzle.” She looked at the front door, then him. “You sure you’re okay with me tagging along?”
“I came here to get you, didn’t I?”
“Thought you were worried about me.”
“That too.”
She let him go out first and double-checked to make sure the door was locked—not that it had stopped Rick from getting inside. She grabbed the passenger door and had one leg in when she saw what was on the seat. Her badge and her gun in its holster.
Trent was sitting behind the wheel, smiling at her. “Sergeant Malone told me you forgot something at the station.”
She swiped the items and put them on, looking away so the rookie couldn’t see the tears in her eyes, then got into the car. “There’s actually something else I need to take care of before we go wherever we’re going.”
“What is it?”
Her stomach grumbled and he laughed.
“Well, besides the fact that I’m starving…” She hesitated. The next bit wouldn’t be easy to say, and it would make the situation more real, but something about having Trent with her, even waiting in the car, made the thought of going to her parents’ a little easier to bear.
“Steel trap, remember?” he prompted.
“Rick Jensen took his threats one step further. He said he knows how to get to my dad. He had a picture of him outside my parents’ house.”
“Tell me where I’m going.”
Thirty
The redbrick two-story was a feature from her past, with its white trim and red shutters, its double garage, its wraparound porch, and the front bay window. She’d skinned her knees and endured numerous bumps and bruises within the confines of those walls and in the yard. She used to love swinging on the tire that hung from the large, majestic oak in the back.
A gray four-door sedan sat in the driveway—the same one from Rick Jensen’s photo. It was probably her mother’s car, because she’d always preferred monochromatic shades, while her father loved color. Either they had downsized to one car or had started using the garage for more than just storage.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to go in with you?” Trent asked.
She saw the curtain in the front window get swept back. Her mother was standing there, a hand on her hip.
“I’ve got this, Trent. Thank you.” She got out and headed to the door, intending to knock, but it whooshed open.
“Mandy!” Her mother threw her arms around Amanda.
It had been so long since she’d felt her mother’s embrace. She held her so tightly, Amanda felt pain run down her spine, but she still didn’t want to let go. It was only reluctantly that she did so a few moments later. But she had to remember she was there for a purpose, not a reunion, and that Trent was waiting in the car.
Her mother swept a strand of Amanda’s hair behind an ear and gingerly touched her cheek. “Oh dear. What happened to you?”
“A long story,” Amanda said. “Can I come in?”
“Of course, sweetheart!” Her mother turned and yelled, “Nathan!”
Her father’s mumbles reached Amanda’s ears, along with footsteps coming through from the back sitting room, which was off the kitchen.
“What is it, Jules?”
“It’s—” Her mother clamped her hands over her mouth when Amanda’s father stepped into view.
“Mandy,” he uttered, eyes full of tears. His face was all shadows.
“I should have called you back, but—”
“Nonsense,” her mother said. “This is even better. You’re home. Finally.” Her mother pranced deeper into the house.
Amanda shut the front door as it seemed her parents had forgotten about it and moved toward her father. She studied the man who’d raised her, who she’d idolized for so long, who she’d wanted to become.
The Little Grave: A completely heart-stopping crime thriller (Detective Amanda Steele Book 1) Page 19